The machine disclosed in the Wright et al patent has an open-top waste-receiving hopper, generally rectangular in horizontal section, with a bottom or floor and opposed side walls. The head of a compression or charging ram, forming the lower portion of one end wall of the hopper, is movable through the lower portion of the hopper along its bottom to push waste material into and through a transfer or charging passage in the other end wall of the hopper which is aligned with and substantially conforms, in cross-section, to the elevational outline of the ram head. This charging passage leads to a compression or baling chamber from which the material compressed therein by the charging ram, i.e. a bale, is ejected through a discharge passage extending at right angles to the charging passage and tied to retain the material in a bale. Such ejection is accomplished by an ejection ram the head of which moves through the compression chamber and the discharge passage.
The machine normally is operated automatically, although manual control can be selected, and the compression or charging ram usually makes several excursions or cycles through the hopper and charging passage, and even overtravels into the compression or baling chamber itself to move waste material thereinto and compress it therein to a desired bale density before the bale is ejected. When that density has been attained, the compression ram moves to position its head at the exit end of the charging passage with the face of the head coextensive with a side wall of the discharge passage, to thus form a side wall of the compression chamber. The ejection ram then advances through the chamber in step-by-step movements to eject the bale through the discharge passage. Just outside the discharge passage, and surrounding it, is a tying mechanism which, when the bale pauses between its step-by-step ejection movements, encircles the bale with a strap or wire and ties the latter to retain the compressed material in its bale shape. The outer end of the discharge passage may be closed by a door during reciprocations of the charging or compression ram but a door is not essential because the compression ram moves at right angles to the direction of discharge of the bale and the latter plugs the discharge passage sufficiently to attain a desired bale density.
A problem exists, however, with the machine described above. On occasion the charging ram will move too much material into the compression or baling chamber so that the material protrudes back into the transfer passage and the compressed ram cannot be advanced to its normal bale-ejecting position, i.e. with the face of the head coextensive with a side wall of the discharge passage. In such event, the width of the bale will be greater than that of the discharge passage and the oversize bale cannot be ejected or pushed through the discharge passage by the ejection ram. Heretofore, to overcome such a situation, the compression ram is retracted and a man descends into the hopper to clear the jam, i.e. to pull sufficient material out of the charging passage and back into the hopper to permit the material remaining in the chamber to be ejected. Such a jam-clearing operation not only is time consuming and inefficient, however, but also dangerous. If the compression ram should be advanced, through accident, inadvertence or mistake, while a man is in the hopper, the result could be too horrible to contemplate.